Best of April

Weeeee. Here are the best of the bests for May. 

Best Book of the Month:

Blodeuedd - The Housemaid by Freida McFadden

"And Housemaid gets best book because it threw a punch!"

Carole - Dungeons and Drama by Kristy Boyce

"Such a refreshing YA read. So good."

Best Movie of the Month:

Carole -  Nadda this month. Didn't watch any movies. Only shows. 

Blodeuedd - Book Club: The Next Chapter (2023)

"I watched The book club 2. No idea if I watched the first one but I enjoyed this one, and it was funny too."

Best TV show of the Month:

Blodeuedd - High Potential (s1), Will Trent (s3)

"I really enjoyed High Potential. A good mix of fun and crime. And Will Trent s3 was good!"

Carole - Dead Boy Detectives (s1), Ghost UK (s5)

"Rewatching Dead Boy Detectives. So stinkin' good. And the last season of Ghost UK broke me. Also so stinkin' good."

Best Cover of the Month:

C's pick: Dragons!!!

B's pick: Simple, but good.

Honorable Mention:

Carole's pick - Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier

"I would give this book of the month, but it wouldn't be fair. It's one of my fave books ever."

Audiobook Review: Dungeons and Drama by Kristy Boyce

Author: Kristy Boyce

Narrator: Eva Kaminsky

Title: Dungeons and Drama

Series: Dungeons and Drama #1

Genre: Romance, YA, Contemporary

Format: Audiobook

Published:  January 9, 2024

Where I got It: Borrowed from library

Summary: 

When it comes to romance, sometimes it doesn't hurt to play games. A fun YA romcom full of fake dating hijinks!

Musical lover Riley has big aspirations to become a director on Broadway. Crucial to this plan is to bring back her high school’s spring musical, but when Riley takes her mom’s car without permission, she's grounded and stuck with the worst punishment: spending her after-school hours working at her dad’s game shop.

Riley can't waste her time working when she has a musical to save, so she convinces Nathan—a nerdy teen employee—to cover her shifts and, in exchange, she’ll flirt with him to make his gamer-girl crush jealous.

But Riley didn’t realize that meant joining Nathan's Dungeons & Dragons game…or that role playing would be so fun. Soon, Riley starts to think that flirting with Nathan doesn't require as much acting as she would've thought...

Review:

This was picked for book club, plus, I've had my eyes on this so I was excited to see it get selected. Weeee. 

Here we follow Riley who is a teenage drama queen. She loves the stage and loves musicals; she dreams of becoming a stage director one day. However, all that comes crashing down when she takes her mom's car without permission to a show. As punishment, she now has to work after school hours at her dad's game shop. In order to get some of her shifts covered so she can work on the school musical (plus keep her ex from knowing she is single STILL) , she strikes a deal with Nathan. She will help make his crush jealous by flirting with him if he pretends to be her boyfriend when her ex shows up and cover a couple of shifts. He agrees, but she has to join his D&D game. Little will she know that she will fall for D&D and for Nathan.

This was simply adorable. I really enjoyed it and I couldn't stop listening to it. As a girl who loves both musicals and D&D this was such a fun combo and seeing the two worlds come together. LOVE. 

The characters are fun even though Riley's selfishness drove me to insanity sometimes. At the core of it, she is a nice girl....just a typical teen who is obsessed with herself and what she wants. 

Nathan was a sweet boy but again...there were times he was stuck on only what he wanted.

Teens. *rolls eyes*

Even though this was a YA, it didn't feel cringey YA like some of them can. You know what I mean. It felt real and had some depth and it was enjoyable. It was a very cute and sweet. It took a while for these two to become more which worked great for the story. 

The narrator was fantastic. Perfect voices for everyone and her singing was cute. 

But yes, I adored this story. 5 stars from me for sure. 

- Favorite Character(s): Nathan

- Least Favorite Character(s): Paul

 Challenge(s):

- Audiobook #17

- Library love #9

- Romance Reading #14 (Fake Dating trope)